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Guinea-Bissau

Country in West Africa, bounded north by Senegal, east and southeast by Guinea, and southwest by the Atlantic Ocean.

Government

Guinea-Bissau is a republic with a multiparty political system, with a presidential executive. Its 1984 constitution was amended in 1991 to legalize parties other than the African Party for the Independence of Portuguese Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC). The constitution provides for a single-chamber legislature, the 100-member national assembly, popularly elected from multi-member constituencies for four-year terms. The president is elected by popular vote for a five-year term. The president appoints a prime minister after consultation with party leaders in the legislature. There is a supreme court, comprising nine justices appointed by the president. The country is divided into nine regions.

History

Guinea-Bissau was first reached by Europeans when the Portuguese arrived in 1446 and it became a slave-trading centre. Until 1879 it was administered with the Cape Verde Islands, but then became a separate colony under the name of Portuguese Guinea.

Nationalist groups began to form in the 1950s, and PAIGC was established in 1956. Portugal refused to grant independence, fighting broke out, and by 1972 PAIGC claimed to control two-thirds of the country. In 1973 the ‘liberated areas’ were declared independent, a national people's assembly was set up, and Luiz Cabral was appointed president of a state council. Some 40,000 Portuguese troops were engaged in trying to put down the uprising and suffered heavy losses, but before a clear outcome was reached a coup in Portugal ended the fighting, and PAIGC negotiated independence with the new government in Lisbon.

After independence

In 1974 Portugal formally acknowledged Guinea-Bissau as a sovereign nation. PAIGC began to lay the foundations of a socialist state, intended to include Cape Verde, but in 1980, four days before approval of the constitution, Cape Verde withdrew, feeling that Guinea-Bissau was being given preferential treatment. In November 1980, at a time of economic difficulties which had made the government unpopular, João Bernardo ‘Nino’ Vieira, who had been prime minister since 1978, deposed Cabral in a bloodless military coup and became chair of a council of revolution.

At its 1981 congress, PAIGC decided to retain its name, despite Cape Verde's withdrawal, and its position as the only party was confirmed, with Vieira as secretary general. Normal relations between the two countries were restored in 1982. In 1984 a new constitution made Vieira head of government as well as head of state, and in 1989 he was re-elected for another five-year term. He outlined a programme of political liberalization, which involved the repeal of articles of the constitution enshrining the leading role of the PAIGC, and new laws to allow the formation of other political parties, a free press, and independent trade unions with the right to strike.

Introduction of multiparty politics

In 1991 PAIGC approved the introduction of ‘integral multipartyism’ and in the following year a multiparty electoral commission was established. In the first multiparty elections in July 1994 the PAIGC won a clear majority. Vieira won the concurrent presidential elections by a narrow margin, defeating Kumba Ialá of the Social Renewal Party (PRS) by a 52% to 48% margin to become the country's first popularly elected president.

Ousting of Vieira

In June 1998, General Ansumane Mane, who had recently been sacked by President Vieira as army chief of staff, led a military rebellion against the president, precipitating fighting in the city of Bissau. Government loyalists and troops sent from Senegal and Guinea drove rebels from their main barracks stronghold, but fighting continued elsewhere in the city. Senegal closed its border with Guinea-Bissau as soon as the revolt broke out but let in refugees on humanitarian grounds. The rebellion and civil war displaced half the country's population.

A ceasefire was agreed in late June, but soon broke down.

In November 1998 the government agreed to a plan brokered by the 16-nation Economic Community of West African States and the former colonial power, Portugal, which provided for a transitional government and deployment of peace-keeping troops while elections were held. But the rebel army was not disarmed and fighting returned to Bissau in February 1999. By May 1999 rebel forces controlled the country and President Vieira was overthrown. He was forced into exile in Portugal and was expelled from the PAIGC.

Ialá becomes president

After a resounding victory, with 72% of the vote, in the second round of the presidential election in January 2000, Kumba Ialá of the PRS became president and Caetano N'Tchama prime minister.

But in November 2000, General Mane precipitated a new crisis when he declared himself head of the army. This caused divisions in the army, but after a day of fighting in Bissau, he withdrew, and was killed in fighting in November.

In February 2001, President Ialá dismissed Prime Minister N'Tchama and replaced him with Faustino Imbali.

Security forces foiled an attempted coup in December 2001, but in September 2003, with the economy ailing and the military disaffected, Ialá was overthrown in a bloodless military coup. A businessman, Henrique Rosa, became interim president. National Assembly elections, held in March 2004, produced an inconclusive result, with the PAIGC winning 45 of the 100 seats, the PRS 35, and the United Social Democratic Party (PUSD) 17.

Vieira returns as president

In April 2005 João Vieira returned to Bissau from exile in Portugal to contest the presidential election. He stood as an independent and in the second round run-off, in June 2005, defeated the PAIGC's candidate, Malam Bacai Sanhá, by a margin of 52% to 48% of the vote, in what were seen as fair and open elections. In October 2005, President Vieira dismissed Carlos Gomes Junior, the leader of the PAIGC, as prime minister, and replaced him with Aristides Gomes, a political ally. After losing a confidence vote in the national assembly in March 2007, Aristides Gomes resigned as prime minister. He was replaced by Martinho Ndafa Kabi, heading a PAIGC–PRS–PUSD grand coalition government. The country's return to democracy has taken place within a fractured economy which had suffered from the 1998–99 civil war.